Torment

by David Evans

  Strong held up a hand in an emphatic ‘Stop’ command then put a finger to his lips. “Szymanski?” he whispered.

  She held up four fingers and he nodded towards the door into the place itself. Slowly and deliberately, she reached for the button she had gone for before, mouthing, “Okay?”

  The electric lock clicked and both officers stepped into a short dimly-lit corridor. It opened out into a lounge area where two sofas were placed against opposite walls. Immediately, a young dark-haired girl dressed only in bra, pants, hold-up stockings and high-heeled shoes stood up from the right hand one and approached Strong. The broad smile on her face melted into a look of concern as Stainmore appeared behind him.

  Moving quickly past him, she ushered the girl back down onto the sofa, motioning her to keep quiet. “Police,” she said quietly, flipping out her warrant card. “You have nothing to fear. You understand?”

  The girl looked frightened but nodded.

  “Room 4?” Strong asked.

  She pointed to the corridor to the right of a wall-mounted flat screen television which was showing a large-breasted blonde girl being taken from behind by a black man over a kitchen table. The moans and groans from the soundtrack didn’t match the action and seemed to have been added later.

  “Can we kill that?” Strong said, thumb towards the screen. He set off down another dingy corridor. Halfway towards the emergency exit at the very end, doors led off both sides. Behind door 3 to the left, the familiar rhythmic creaking accompanied by moans that did sound genuine, could be heard. Door 4 to the right seemed quiet. Putting his ear to it, he thought he could hear a male voice speaking quietly.

  Taking hold of the door handle, he slowly turned it. Slight pressure revealed it was locked somehow from inside. He took a deep breath and hoped Stella hadn’t let him down. Shoulder to the door, he burst in. Szymanski was sitting on the side of a massage couch, trousers at his ankles whilst a skinny blonde girl was in the middle of performing oral sex on him. She jumped back and began to scream hysterically.

  “What the fuck ...”Szymanski began.

  “Stefan Szymanski,” Strong stated, holding up his warrant card, “I’m DCI Strong and I’d like to have a word with you.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Nadia,” he said to the still screaming blonde.

  Almost instantly, she did.

  “If you’d care to join your colleague in the lounge,” Strong told the frightened girl, “my fellow officer will take care of you.”

  “You mind if I get myself dressed, officer,” Szymanski said.

  “Be my guest.” Strong then escorted Nadia out of the room.

  As he did so, Szymanski, trousers quickly back up, barged past Strong and bolted for the fire exit. He shook his head as the Pole burst through the door and out into the daylight. The sounds of a brief scuffle could be heard before Ormerod, a broad grin below the familiar thick black moustache, appeared, dragging a now handcuffed Szymanski back inside. “Lost something, guv?” he asked.

  Darby strolled in behind them, hands in his trouser pockets. “Always wanted to see what one of these places looked like from the inside,” he commented. Strong and Ormerod exchanged looks of incredulity but said nothing.

  The overweight middle-aged bald bloke who had been humping the young girl in Room 3 gave his name and an address in Huddersfield. Strong gave him five minutes to get dressed and told him they’d be in touch – which they probably wouldn’t, unless something more sinister surfaced – but it would make the bastard sweat a bit. Darby saw him off the premises by the fire exit and made a note of the details of the car he drove off in. The PNC check revealed it was owned by a stationery wholesaler in Manchester.

  Ormerod meanwhile sat on one of the sofas in the lounge alongside Szymanski. The television had been switched off. Nadia, the girl from the lounge and the young girl from Room 3 had been taken into the reception area by Stainmore.

  Strong walked up the left-hand corridor and found two more rooms. The door to Room 2 revealed another grubby massage couch in a darkened room. The other door, marked Room 1, was locked but he was satisfied there was no other person on the premises.

  Back in the lounge, he slowly paced the room, saying nothing for several minutes. Eventually, he spoke. “Why did you make a run for it, Mr Szymanski?”

  “I didn’t know who you were, you could have been anybody,” the Pole replied with only a slight accent.

  He stopped and turned to face him. “After I told you who I was and showed you my warrant card?”

  “Could have been false.”

  “Cut the crap,” Strong snorted, “You knew perfectly well who I was.” He began to pace again.

  Ormerod was studying Szymanski all the while, but he appeared to be relaxed and gave nothing away.

  “Are you in charge of this … establishment?” Strong asked after another few seconds pause.

  “I manage it, yes.”

  “For Mr Mirczack?”

  “He owns the place, yes.”

  Strong stopped and faced Szymanski. “Room 1, what’s in there?”

  “It’s another massage room but we don’t normally use it. The girls use it to get changed.”

  Stella had put up the ‘Closed’ sign, locked the door and set the telephone on answer machine before sitting with the three young women in the reception area.

  Stainmore took out her notebook. “I’ll need some details from you ladies,” she said.

  Before any of the others could say anything, Stella cut in, “I’m Stella Hunter, receptionist here today. Can I have a word in private?”

  Stainmore regarded the girls briefly and decided that they were unlikely to run out into the street dressed the way they were, even if they could unlock the door. She was led to a toilet behind the reception desk.

  Stella produced a card from her handbag. “Can I suggest you give Vince, Detective Sergeant Vince Denholme a call. Your DCI Strong knows him and knows we have … an arrangement.”

  Stainmore studied the card. “You’re an informant?”

  Stella shrugged. “Sort of. Mr Strong was interested in Helena, the Albanian girl who worked as receptionist here.” She paused.

  “Go on.”

  “He was also asking about a punter, Chris, who used to see Mariana.” Again a pause before she continued, “Mariana is the dark-haired girl in reception.”

  “Thanks.” Stainmore gave her the card back, turned and made her way to rejoin the other women.

  Darby returned down the corridor from the fire exit, having seen the punter off the premises, then sat on the opposite sofa.

  “I think we can lose the cuffs, Luke,” Strong said to Ormerod as he sat next to Szymanski. Strong reached into his jacket pocket and produced a photograph. “Do you recognise this girl?” he asked.

  Szymanski took hold of the picture, looked at it for a few seconds then handed it back. “That’s Helena,” he said, “used to work here.”

  “We know that already. But she was a bit more than that though, wasn’t she?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “She was your girlfriend for a while.”

  “She had a silly infatuation, that was all.”

  “Is that why you used to visit her?”

  He smiled. “Aah, her sister, Magda. She told you that?”

  “When did you last see her?”

  Szymanski sucked in air through his teeth in an exaggerated gesture of giving the question some thought. “Ooh, let’s see … it must have been at least two weeks ago. The Tuesday, I think.”

  “So she wasn’t here on the Thursday evening?”

  “No,” Szymanski said sharply. “She was supposed to but she didn’t show up.”

  “And that didn’t concern you?”

  “I just thought she’d decided to stop coming.”

  Strong looked round the room. “You have CCTV here, don’t you?”

  “Only in reception. In case we have an awkward customer.”

  Strong got
to his feet. “I’d like to see it for last week.”

  “Ah, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Not going to make me go through the motions of obtaining a warrant?”

  He smirked. “No. More simple than that, they were wiped on Sunday ready for the new week.”

  “Stay with our friend,” Strong said to Ormerod before walking through to the reception area.

  Stainmore sat next to Nadia. “I need to have your name and address.”

  Nadia looked nervous. “I not sure what’s happening,” she responded in a heavy accent.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Stainmore said, with a smile. “We only need a few details in case we need to talk to you again.”

  “Don’t worry, Nadia,” Stella reassured her, “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Nadia looked from Stainmore to Stella and back again. Quietly, she began, “My name is Nadia Petrov and I come from Estonia. I come to work as nanny but …” Her response tailed off.

  “And where do you live?”

  “I stay with the other girls in a house.”

  “And where is that exactly?”

  “It’s called Harehills I think, but I not know the address. Szymanski or one of the others, they bring us.”

  Stainmore looked at the other girls. “All of you? You all live in the same house and you’re ferried in?”

  They both nodded.

  “What about you, Mariana is it?” she asked the dark haired girl.

  “I only call myself Mariana here. My name’s Lyudmyla Butkus and I come from Lithuania.”

  Again Stainmore looked at all the girls. “Do you all use false names.”

  “Nadia is my name,” the Estonian girl said.

  “I’m Katarina, Katarina Kazlauskas, also from Estonia, but in here they call me Lucy,” said the girl from Room 3.

  Stainmore paused taking notes. “Although you don’t know the address where you stay, do you think you would be able to find it if we took you there?”

  The girls looked at one another, then Lyudmyla spoke. “Yes, of course.”

  Strong came into reception at that point, taking in the assembled group. He approached Stella. “I’d like to see the CCTV,” he said.

  Almost imperceptibly, she indicated for him to follow her and went behind the counter to slide open a cupboard beneath. “When from?”

  “How long do you normally keep them?”

  “If it’s like the other parlours, usually two weeks. I think the idea is that it gives us time if we’ve been passed some dodgy money, we can try and trace it back.”

  “How about two weeks ago today, Thursday.”

  She bent down and beckoned Strong to join her. “That girl,” she whispered, “the dark-haired one, she’s Mariana, the one your victim used to visit. I’ve told your colleague.”

  He nodded. “Thanks,” he said, straightening up again.

  Stella came back up with a cassette bearing the date, put it in a player behind her and pressed play. The monitor flickered from snowy to blank grey and stayed that way.

  “That’s funny,” she said, “there’s nothing on it. It seems to have been wiped.”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “Well, yes. As I said, they’re normally kept for a fortnight and this wouldn’t be recycled until tomorrow. Let’s try another.”

  She ejected the cassette and dug out another, this time bearing a more recent date. The result was the same.

  Strong scooped up the tapes and returned to reception. “Can you bag these up, Kelly,” he said. “We’ll see if our experts can retrieve anything from them,” then quietly added, “although I doubt it.” With that, he disappeared back into the parlour.

  Stainmore produced some plastic evidence bags from her jacket pocket and began to feed the cassette tapes into them. “Have you got other clothes here?” she asked the women, “I assume Szymanski doesn’t bring you in dressed like that.”

  “There’s a room at the back,” Stella held up a key. “Room 1, where the girls change.”

  “Just wait here a minute.” Stainmore got to her feet and headed towards the internal door. “I’ll just check with my boss.”

  Strong returned to where Ormerod was sitting with Szymanski.

  “Very convenient of you to attempt to wipe the tapes, Mr Szymanski,” Strong said, standing in the middle of the room. “Still, I’m sure our experts will be able to recover the images,” he bluffed.

  Concern showed on Szymanski’s face for the first time. “But it’s just routine, they’re always wiped at the end of a week.”

  “I think we’ll continue this conversation back at Wood Street.”

  “But what about this place?”

  Strong looked at Ormerod as he turned to lead the way. “I’m sure the ladies will appreciate an early night.”

  Just then, Stainmore appeared. “Is it alright to bring the girls through to get dressed, guv?”

  “Good idea, Kelly. We’re just about to leave.” Strong turned to Szymanski. “Just sit there a minute,” he said.

  “All right, ladies, come and get changed please.” Stainmore led the way through the lounge area. Stella, with the key, and the three girls overtook her and disappeared down the left hand corridor, much to Darby’s amusement.

  Szymanski tried to look hard at the girls as they passed. Nadia and Katarina kept their heads down but he fixed Lyudmyla and she momentarily froze.

  Stainmore caught the exchange. “I hope that’s not an attempt to intimidate, Mr Szymanski?” she said.

  Ormerod cuffed the Pole again and dragged him to his feet. He pushed him in the back towards reception, Darby following behind.

  Strong hung back to speak to Stainmore. “Have you shown them the photos of Helena and Baker yet?”

  “Not yet, guv.”

  “You know the dark haired one is Mariana who Baker used to see?”

  “Her real name’s Lyudmyla.”

  Strong looked surprised. “Lyudmyla? I’m sure that was the name of the friend Helena was supposed to have been visiting. I need to talk to her. What are you doing with them now?”

  “Apparently, they all lodge together in a house in Harehills. They can’t give an address but Ludymila, that’s Mariana, can take me.”

  “Harehills? That was where Helena was supposed to be visiting friends when she disappeared.” He scratched his head. “Are they all from Eastern Europe?”

  “Lyudmyla’s from Lithuania and the other two are from Estonia.”

  Strong checked his watch. “Look, I’m going to get Szymanski back to Wood Street. I think we also need to talk to the girls, as witnesses for now. See what they can tell us about Helena. If you go back with Mariana or whatever she calls herself, check out the house, I’ll get Luke to take the other two back with him to the station. He can bring Stella in too, at least for appearances. John and I’ll make sure Szymanski gets there safe and sound. We need to keep them separate though. See what you can find out in Harehills then bring her back with you.”

  Five minutes later, Stella had locked up the unit and the place was lifeless.

  45

  As Souter walked into the Archive Room behind the reception in the Yorkshire Post’s offices, Phyllis looked up from the latest batch of newspapers she was working through.

  “Ah, Mr Souter. I heard you’d been rummaging through my files.”

  “Yes, Phyllis, and very useful they were too.” He sat opposite the slim, neatly dressed, grey haired woman. “How far back are you now?”

  “I’m back to 1980, love,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer they’ll want me to do.” She turned some pages over. “Here, can you believe it’ll be twenty years this year since John Lennon was murdered?”

  “Twenty years? It doesn’t seem that long.” Souter looked off into an unseen distance.

  “I liked a lot of his songs. Imagine was beautiful. But there was some rubbish among them as well.” Phyllis looked at him. “Do you think they would have
got back together if it hadn’t happened?”

  “That’s certainly one to ponder.”

  “Anyway, anything particular I can help you with?”

  “Just wanted to have a look through the last couple of years, see if anything catches my eye.”

  “They’re all up there.” She indicated the rows of shelving on the back wall. “If there’s anything you want, just ask.”

  “Thanks.” Souter selected the microfiche from 1999 and fed it into the machine.

  After about half an hour’s trawl, looking for any background he could find on the Baker family, he’d only come across some small reports of Gary’s appearances in court for various motoring offences. Sentenced to six months in April. Mention was also made of previous offences for burglary. He rubbed his eyes as Phyllis, hair back-combed and lacquered to within an inch of its life, placed a mug of coffee in front of him.

  “So, how are you settling in?” she asked. “It must be, what, six months now?”

  “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “Yes, it’s okay.”

  “What do you reckon to young Janey?”

  Souter paused before answering. She probably thought he was considering his reply. In fact he was trying to determine what the black specks were in her hair. “She’ll be good,” he said, “She’s writing some good stuff.” Flies. The specks were small flies he realised, trapped and killed by some form of human fly-paper.

  “That must be contender for headline of the year last week.”

  “Which one was that?”

  “When she was reporting from the courts, ‘Flasher Told He Must Keep His Trousers On’, I nearly wet myself.”

  He chuckled, surprised at her turn of phrase. “Yeah, she had some fun with that one.”

  Phyllis took her drink back to her desk and resumed her work.

  Souter returned his attention to the viewer and began spinning through the microfiche once more. Five minutes later, something caught his attention. Bringing the page back to the viewer, he saw an article on the retirement of a senior printer for the company, De La Rue. A photograph depicted a group of men and women surrounding a grey haired man accepting a silver tray from a distinguished looking bald man, all with broad smiles on their faces. That headed a quarter page article. The caption read, ‘Managing Director, Mr George Aspinall presents a silver salver to Mr Robert Baker to mark his retirement after thirty-two years employment with De La Rue.’ he began to read the article. ‘Latterly, Mr Baker was a senior designer at their factory at Team Valley near Gateshead and had been responsible for the design and printing of currency notes for a number of countries as well as various forms for the British Government.’